A Guyanese man will be spending the next 14 months in an Antiguan prison after being caught trying to smuggle two pounds of cocaine, ingested in pellets, onto the island.
Although Chandradav Lakhan, 20, was fined $55,000 for the offence, he could not pay the sum and Magistrate Conliffe Clarke sentenced him instead, the Antigua Observer reported. Once the sentence is completed, Lakhan will be sent back to Guyana.
According to the newspaper, Lakhan had pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and two other drug charges after being nabbed at the V.C. Bird International Airport last Friday morning.
The report said that Lakhan arrived in Antigua on a Caribbean Airlines Flight from Guyana. He was observed acting in a suspicious manner by authorities and was stopped and questioned. Lakhan was then taken to a hospital, where an x-ray examination was performed and showed several foreign objects in his stomach. He was given a laxative and later passed out about 100 cocaine pellets. The cocaine weighed about two pounds and police on the island estimated its worth at about $30,000.
